#a.lloyd moote

[histoireettralala]

".. and now that he loved him and was very worthily served, she wanted to have him ruined"- Louis XIII, Richelieu, and Marie de Medici.

The triangular relationship of monarch, mother, and minister, was rife with tension. While Marie's influence was not great enough to label the governing body a triumvirate, she was pushy enough to make decisions both in and out the council very, very difficult. She became jealous of her former protégé, listened to the backbiting criticism of dévots like Marillac and Cardinal Bérulle, and eventually spoke out in council against the cleric who had once dictated her speeches. She pushed and pushed until, in 1629 and 1630, she finally demanded that her son dismiss Richelieu. This placed Louis in precisely the position he sought to avoid: to choose between minister and mother.

Louis did his best to keep his mother content and contained. He made her regent for northern France during his absence at the siege of La Rochelle in 1627-1628, and again during his campaign in Savoy in 1629. When they were separated, he was a faithful correspondent on government and personal matters. From Susa, he wrote of being "right to the last breath of my life your very humble and obedient son." But, except when she insisted on Gaston's marrying in 1626, Louis refused to follow his mother's political recommendations when these differed from his own intuitions.

In the face of Marie's growing jealousy of the bond between her protégé and her son, Louis praised the Cardinal's services: "My Cousin the Cardinal of Richelieu has so worthily served me on this occasion that I cannot say just how much I am satisfied with his care and diligence. They give me hope that the rest of my undertaking will go the same way; and that God, if it pleases him, will continue to favor my designs."

In the winter of 1629-30, Louis mustered his strongest argument, saying that "when he had been not at all inclined toward [Richelieu] she got him to employ him; and now that he loved him and was very worthily served, she wanted to have him ruined." Marie countered in vain "that he could employ him if he wished, but for her part she would never engage his services." Louis insisted on getting the three principals together in a meeting that left all of them in tears. An observer recalled that "the king threw so much passion into this reconciliation that it was achieved the next day." Against her better judgment, Marie agreed to retain Richelieu and his relatives as leading members of her personal household. And so tensions continued.

Ultimately, Louis resolved such tensions as these by striking back. Irritated beyond measure by government problems involving human failures, he lashed out against the immediate wrongdoer and made sweeping cabinet changes that, not trusting his own judgment, he had previously hesitated to undertake.

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just

[christinaepilzauthor-blog]

The London Plague 1665

By Brindy Wilcox Two major events  happened in the winter of 1664. Firstly, there were sightings of a large comet over London, on which John Gadbury, a distinguished astrologer commented, 'portends pestiferous and horiible windes and tempests'. An extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys on Thursday 15 December 1664 reads: 'So to the Coffeehouse, where great talke of the Comet seen in several places'.

Public Domain image via Wikipedia

The second event was the unremarkable recording of the death of Goodwoman Phillips in the parish of Saint Giles in the Fields, outside the City walls of London, on Christmas Eve 1664, where parish searchers pronounced her to have died of the plague. (From: The Great Plague – The Story of London's Most Deadly Year – A.Lloyd Moote & Dorothy C Moote, John Hopkins University Press 2004.)  Whilst the death would be of concern to the immediate neighbours of Goodwoman Phillips it would not raise concerns with officials, as it was not uncommon for the occasional death from plague to appear on a Bill of Mortality. Old women, known as 'searchers', were usually paid pennies by the Parish authorities to determine the cause of death of ordinary people and, with no training, they could be unreliable. These were often elderly female pensioners supported by the local Parish and once the cause of death had been determined they reported it to the parish clerk for inclusion on the London Weekly Bill of Mortality.

Public Domain image via Wikipedia

These events heralded a difficult year for Charles II, who came to the throne in 1660 after the execution of his father, Charles I in 1649 and the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, marking an end to republican rule in England. He is probably better remembered for being on the throne during the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of London in 1666 than his role during the Anglo-Dutch wars. He was well renowned for his love of dogs and, in particular, the King Charles spaniel, who took their breed name from him. He was rarely seen going anywhere without some of his beloved dogs and even preferred to be entertained by them during meetings when he should have been attending to state business.

Modern King Charles Spaniels - photo supplied by author

The first recorded deaths of the Great Plague appeared on the London Weekly Bill of Mortality in April 1665. There is some discrepancy as to who this is reported to have been with notations quoting both Rebecca Andrews and Margaret Porteous as being the first, the only consistency being they are both reported to have died on April 12th 1665. By early June 1665 recorded deaths from the plague had risen to 112 in a week across 12 parishes. At the time, it was believed that the plague was being spread by dogs and cats and, in an effort to control the disease, the Lord Mayor issued a decree that from July 1st 1665 all cats and dogs within the City of London were to be killed. Householders were told to kill all of their dogs, regardless of breed, or face prosecution and a special team of dog killers were put in place. In an attempt to control the plague it is rumoured that 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats were slaughtered and that the domestic cat was almost wiped out in London. The summer of 1665 was one of the hottest driest droughts for many years, ideal conditions for the spread of the plague. By July there were over 1,000 deaths a day from the plague and Samuel Pepys wrote the following in his diary,

"But, Lord! What a sad time it is to see no boats upon the river; and grass grows all up and down White Hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets!" 

The rich had mostly left London to avoid catching the disease, the King and his dogs had gone up to Hampton Court and people needed a Certificate of Health to confirm that they were plague free before they could leave the City of London. These were issued by doctors but, as more and more doctors left London, a black-market trade grew up for people who could afford to pay for a fake certificate. Trade with London had ground to a halt and it was mainly the poor that had nowhere else to go that remained. Samuel Pepys decided to stay at his home in London, although he did send his wife away to Woolwich during July, when he also made this entry in his diary showing that people would rather admit to murder than admit that they had the plague in their household.

July 22nd 1665 I met this noon with Dr Burnett, who told me, and I find in the news-book this week that he posted upon the Change, that whoever did spread that report that instead of the plague, his servant was by him killed, it was forgery; and showed me the acknowledgement of the maister of the Pest-house that his servant died of a Bubo on his right groine, and two Spots on his right thigh, which is the plague.

The number of deaths peaked in the week of September 19th 1665, when there were 7,185 plague deaths across 126 parishes, with only 4 parishes reportedly being plague-free. Unknown to the authorities the Lord Mayor's decree had probably made things worse as, rather than the cats and dogs being the problem, it was the fleas that lived on rats - and by killing off the natural predators of the rats the plague had been able to spread more rapidly. As the winter weather moved in the numbers of deaths began to reduce and winter brought an end to the Great Plague of London. Charles II eventually considered it safe to return to London in February of 1666. Over 100,000 people are estimated to have died from the plague, although in the later weeks record keeping was far from accurate due to the numbers dying. 1665 saw the last major outbreak of the bubonic plague in Great Britain with the last recorded death from the plague in 1679. It was removed from the Bills of Mortality as a specific category after 1703. ~~~~~~~~~~

Born in Settle, North Yorkshire, Brindy Wilcox's love of books started at an early age and she grew up loving the adventures of The Famous Five and The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton. Another fond childhood memory is of Rusty, her very lovable Red Setter dog; she would spend hours sitting with him telling him stories. So, it seems inevitable that, when she decided to write her first novel, it would be about adventurous dogs. She first had an ambition to write a book about 25 years ago but a career in Accountancy kept her busy so that she only found time to start writing a couple of years ago. She chose the self-publish route and one of her proudest moments was when she finally held her completed YA novel, Through Time To London in September 2016. Amazon Author Page

Hat Tip To: English Historical Fiction Authors

[histoireettralala]

"It is something that must be remedied". Dueling, noble privilege, honor, and the authority of the State.

At the Assembly of Notables, the king's friends Marshals La Force and Bassompierre complained that although the noble order had saved Henry IV's throne when the other orders had "deserted" him, now they found themselves pushed unceremoniously out of judicial and financial offices and even the king's council. Louis XIII replied cautiously that he intended to "favor his nobility with all the advantages he could." In the next few months he responded with a mixture of token concessions and severe demands. On the benign side, he tried (in vain) to make nobles engage in ignoble commerce by legalizing it, and he gave them a monopoly of household offices and top military and ecclesiastical posts. On the disciplinary side, he slashed their pensions, added yet another edict against dueling (superseding those of 1623 and 1624), set up a noble commission to authorize the demolition of chateau and town fortifications in the interior of the realm, and made it a capital offense to attack state policies and their authors (i.e., Richelieu) in printed tracts. Richelieu's hand can be seen in both the benign and the harsh sides of these reforms; Louis hand is especially evident in the latter.

The most spectacular example of Louis XIII's reforming action involving the nobility during this period was the execution of Bouteville for dueling. Francois de Montmorency, count of Bouteville, was a member of a distinguished provincial family and had the best connections at court. He embodied the noblest qualities of the fearless warrior in Louis's battles with the Huguenots. Unfortunately, he was also, at age twenty-seven, the champion dueler of France. Richelieu exaggerated only slightly in saying that Bouteville had his hand in every duel in France between 1624 and 1627. Some sort of showdown with Louis XIII was inevitable.

Just before Richelieu's rise to power Louis had tried to enforce an earlier revision of antidueling laws. But Bouteville had fled, and dueling tapered off. It reemerged in 1626. The count was in the thick of the fight, having returned to France just as the old law he had transgressed expired and the new —and more enforceable— edict of February 1626 was being unveiled. Combining the king's determination and his leading minister's ingenuity, the edict of 1626 addressed the pronoble parlementary judges' objection to executing every transgressor of previous laws. Duelers were put on notice that if they dueled or challenged anyone to a duel one on one, they would be stripped of their public posts; if they dueled with seconds —("Three Musketeers"-style) or killed an opponent, they would die. Furthermore, common knowledge alone—rather than virtually unobtainable witnesses, could send a nobleman to the executioner's block.

No one paid any attention. Louis himself seemed ambivalent, for he let his disgraced favorite Barradat off with only banishment from court. Bouteville's case, however, was different from all the rest: he was forever getting involved in elaborate, blood-shedding duels over his honor, even when he tried to run away from them! Just before implementation of the new edict, he engaged in a duel of three against three that ended the lives of two opponents, including yetanother boyhood companion of King Louis. At the beginning of 1627 Bouteville was drawn into yet another duel after his opponent, La Frette, called him a coward for refusing his challenge. A Bouteville second was killed, and the ace dueler promptly fled with his cousin Chapelles to the Spanish Netherlands to escape the new edict's penalties.

Louis XIII unwittingly led Bouteville at long last to his doom by giving the honor-ridden young man a partial pardon that looked like a slight: he would not be prosecuted if he returned to French soil but stayed away from court. Stung by this affront, Bouteville decided to evade no longer the baron of Beuvron, the would-be revenger of his last dueling victim, who had come unsuccessfully all the way to Brussels to challenge him. They fought a multiple duel, in the most public place in Paris Bouteville could think of to uphold his honor against his noble opponent and his royal master —the fashionable Place Royale.

Observers reported the king as being "so offended" that he sent Bassompierre after the fleeing Bouteville and Chapelles with Swiss guards, asked the parlementary prosecutors if the duo could be taken dead or alive, and "expressed great joy" at the news of their capture (while Richelieu and Marillac merely shrugged their shoulders and went on with their work). The instigator of the duel, Beuvron, escaped to England.

As the trial proceeded, Louis managed to keep his emotions in check. When Bouteville's wife, three months pregnant, fell on her knees after mass, the king avoided her, commenting: "The woman brings me pity, but I wish to and must maintain my authority." The condemned man's uncle by marriage, Condé, got nowhere with the typical male noble arguments: "He has failed by error of the custom of your kingdom, which makes honor consist of undertaking perilous actions…. The universal quest for glory, not a personal design to disobey you, drew him into this disobedience."

It is possible that Louis might have been swayed had Richelieu not constantly argued that a test case be made of Bouteville's flagrant defiance of the law. But, as we have seen in our discussion of the royal-ministerial partnership, the minister also made counterarguments for clemency. Richelieu later wrote that he had never been more shaken than by this conflict of values, and by appeals that came from his own family.

After the Parlement had sentenced Chapelles and Bouteville to decapitation, and their opponents to hanging in effigy, Louis armed himself as best he could against the shrieks of Condé's wife and the fainting of Mme de Bouteville. He cited his edicts, conscience, oath, and the blood of his nobility, "for which he had to answer to God." To Charlotte de Montmorency-Condé's cries for mercy he answered: "Their loss moves me as much as you, but my conscience forbids me to pardon them." According to the royal historiographer Bernard, Louis also exclaimed: "It is necessary for a little blood to be shed in this instance to stop the stream that flows daily." Louis XIII insisted that the execution be public, nervously ordered the guards to seize anyone who so much as called for "grace," and had the surrounding streets blocked off with chains and carts.

Bouteville and Chapelles died bravely and repentant for their crimes, dignifying a scene that must have sickened the entire court. Louis himself had to be bled a week later, and immediately fell dangerously ill. Was it worth it? Bernard contended that dueling was lessened, and history has accepted his verdict. In truth, the death on 22 June 1627 of a young nobleman who had killed twenty-two opponents was an exceptional act of state. In contrast to Henry IV and Marie de' Medici, who had condoned the socially acceptable crime of private dueling, Louis XIII simply said that state order was incompatible with flagrant lawless behavior in the name of noble honor.

During the rest of his reign Louis chose carefully where to draw the line. The axe fell on a beloved captain of the king's guards, but spared Protestant and Catholic officers in 1627-28, including Richelieu's cousin, who tried to settle the last of the religious wars by ritual duels. In 1636 Richelieu wrote to Louis that dueling had reappeared, to which the king replied: "It is something that must be remedied."

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just

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Aftermath of a coup: dealing with Marie's and Concini's creatures

Louis XIII dealt with Marie's and Concini's ministerial creatures exactly the way he wanted: according to his scale of political crimes and punishments. Mangot was the most innocuous of the triumvirs; hence, he was merely ordered peremptorily by the king's messenger to hand over the seals of his office, and was not allowed to see his monarch. In sharp contrast, Barbin was immediately jailed and his financial records seized. Ostensibly this action was to facilitate the trial against the Ancres, but it clearly reflected the king's belief that he was guilty of criminal negligence. Marie tried to intercede with Louis, first through Luçon, then at her own leave-taking with her son, and finally by letter from Blois. Barbin was kept in prison for sixteen months, then banished forever from France. Neither his own later appeals to Louis, nor those of Déageant and Luçon, succeeded in restoring his reputation and confiscated assets.

Luçon's fate was more complicated than that of the other triumvirs, reflecting a contest of wills between a hostile Louis XIII and a temporizing Luynes. From the king's perspective, the future cardinalminister Richelieu had three strikes against him: his closeness to Barbin, his indebtedness to Concini for his office, and his terrifyingly bright, authoritarian manner. The monarch revealed all his adolescent distrust on seeing the bishop of Luçon try to join the other secretaries of state after Concini's fall: "So! Luçon! I've finally escaped your tyranny."

Luynes immediately objected that Luçon was not all bad, pointing out the bishop's offer of loyalty before the coup. The king's favorite seems also to have suggested that the cleric's diplomatic skills and influence with the queen mother could help to keep her under control. Louis was sufficiently impressed to let Luçon act as Marie's temporary bargaining agent while she was incarcerated in the Louvre, and to let him accompany her to Blois. The bishop, however, departed soon after for his diocesan residence, probably in anticipation of royal disfavor. Explicit royal orders then sent him further away to the papal territory of Avignon.

These successive exiles undoubtedly reflected Luynes's second thoughts that Luçon was too dangerous a rival to leave with Marie. But they also bear the mark of a suspicious young Louis XIII, terrified of double manipulation by an imperious priest and an irrepressible mother. For his part, Luçon put the best face on his fall from secular grace in his memoirs, doctoring the sequence of events to suggest that the king bore him only good will.

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just

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Richelieu- Background and social outlook

Armand-Jean du Plessis de Richelieu's family background and personal career made him familiar with all three estates of the realm plus the royal court and government. His father, François, had risen from the lesser nobility of Poitou to become grand provost at the Valois court. The elder Richelieu was in charge of maintaining order and provisions within the king's personal retinue and was ranked just below the great officers of the king's household (which included the masters of the stable, hunt, wardrobe, and king's chamber). François died serving as a captain of the guards for Henry IV when Armand, born in 1585, was not yet five.

Armand's eldest brother, Henri, was well positioned as a courtiersoldier during Louis XIII's minority; a second brother, Alphonse, decided on the monastic life. Armand was groomed by Louis XIII's riding master, Pluvinel, to be a courtier-soldier, but he was also inclined to theological studies. In 1607, Richelieu embarked on an ecclesiastical career when he assumed the family's recently acquired ecclesiastical post at Luçon. Bishop of a poor diocese, almoner to Queen Anne, and finally a cardinal and holder of several benefices, he was as committed a cleric as he was instinctively a gentilhomme.

Through his mother, Suzanne de La Porte, Richelieu had another rich inheritance. Her Poitevin grandfather had been a tax agent for a local prince, her father a celebrated parlementary lawyer who helped frame the great sixteenth-century ordinances of royal laws. The La Portes were as successful members of the robe nobility as the Richelieus were typical nobles of the sword. The Richelieu who served Louis XIII was a unique exemplar of the values of the three estates. As a cleric, he blended Catholic reformationist zeal and reverence for the Papacy with an appreciation of the autonomy of the French monarchy. He had come to court as a friend of such religious devots as Pierre Bérulle, who founded the second of his famous Oratory seminaries at Luçon; however, bon Français leanings lay just beneath the surface. Unlike the devots, but like Louis XIII, Richelieu respected the Huguenots, while wanting to see them convert peacefully. As bishop of Luçon, he had written a polemic against Calvinism, fought off an attempt by local Huguenots to build a temple adjacent to his cathedral, and fretted about the Protestant state within the state, whose greatest seaboard town of La Rochelle lay just down the road.

Richelieu came to the court with some of the style of a Second Estate noble. He married his relatives into great families like the Condés. He pursued personal wealth. He even used public funds for private interests. Yet he saw the nobility's greatness not in independent lawless acts, but in service to the monarch. He earned the title of duke and peer in that service. And he joined his king in condemning noble violence, horrified by an uncle's dueling death, his father's killing of the offender in a second duel, and his brother Henri's demise in a duel over the spoils of the first War of the Mother and Son.

When it came to the ways of the Third Estate, this descendant of jurists was a curious blend of royal reformer and pragmatist. Like his royal master, he was opposed on principle to venal officeholding and judicial obstruction of state laws; yet he knew how crucial parlementary loyalty was to establishing a climate of submissiveness, by subjects both high and low. Louis had a habit of lecturing judges for interfering with affairs of what he called "my state"; Richelieu saw the need to bring the judgmental ruler around to a compromise that advanced the cause of that state.

Differences in their social outlook were less significant than shared attitudes. Had it been otherwise, Richelieu would have quickly suffered the fate of Louis's previous advisors. The self-effacing monarch who was comfortable in the dress of a simple soldier could tolerate ostentatious tastes only in a cardinal who liked to lead his armies. The frugal king who talked benevolently of "my poor people" could understand the duke and peer who thought of the poor as beasts of burden, at their best when working hard.

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just

[histoireettralala]

"Sometimes, the king is extremely satisfied with me": Richelieu and Louis XIII

The complicated collaboration of king and cardinal was fortified by strong emotional bonding. The beginning, of course, was shaky. The royal master was suspicious of this suave and sophisticated appointee who had alarming elements of Luynes's winsomeness and La Vieuville's self-assurance. While Richelieu's bright, ingratiating manner had worked well with Concini, Marie, and Luynes, it was not foolproof in the presence of a sovereign opposed by nature to flattery and arrogance. As late as 1629, the cardinal-minister pleaded with the king to trust his advisors, to listen to them and not their detractors, to support them even when they were critical (in private) of royal conduct. He concluded wistfully, "Sometimes the king is extremely satisfied with me; sometimes he takes a dislike [to my service]."

Fortunately, the master and servitor were able to build on their common ground and mutual needs. Although beholden for his entry to the council in 1624 to the good offices of the queen mother, Richelieu made it plain in a private meeting with Louis that he would serve king and state exclusively. This solemn vow, repeated throughout their long association, was backed constantly by his encouragement that Louis be "a great king". Richelieu was equally adept at playing the humble servitor who merely carried out his master's commands and would gladly resign if his services were no longer helpful- an effective counter to Louis's past suspicions about the cardinal's overbearing manner.

The cardinal-minister's letters illustrate this ongoing campaign of mutual indoctrination. Shortly after Richelieu replaced La Vieuville as the king's major advisor, he thanked "the great king" for elevating "mediocrities," signing himself "the very humble and very obedient servitor, le Cardinal de Richelieu." Within a year this complimentary closing lengthened to "the very humble, very faithful, and very indebted subject and servitor." That same year, the servitor told his master he would "maintain with the little spirit and industry that God has given me a total fidelity with which I will be, right down to my last breath, [your very humble . . . ]." In 1626 during the crisis surrounding Gaston's marriage, which appeared to threaten the cardinal's life and his sovereign's throne, Richelieu obeyed Louis's command to come to his side with the statement, "Your Majesty is so prudent and so wise that he cannot fail in his councils." The closing to this letter was more grateful than ever: "the very humble, very obedient, very faithful and very indebted subject and servitor." Thereafter, the complimentary closings remained the same; pledges to lay down the servitor's life for his master continued; and allusions to "the best master in the world" appeared frequently.

Louis warmed to Richelieu's words and the success of his policy analyses. There is a world of difference between the royal letter of 1622 referring to the bishop of Luçon as being among those "who favor the prosperity of my affairs" and that of 1631 assuring the trusted servitor "that I hold to what I have promised you, right to the last breath of my life." Two years later, Louis wrote, "I will always be the best master who ever walked this earth."

The change was gradual, with some emotional high points. In 1626, when Richelieu feigned sickness and offered to resign if that would ease the political crisis, Louis fell all over himself trying to express his gratitude. He wanted his servitor's good health "more than you do," the ruler asserted, "provided you find it in the care and principal charge of my affairs." He noted his satisfaction that "everything, thanks to God, has succeeded since you have been here [in my council]." And he concluded, "I shall protect you against whomever it may be, and I will never abandon you. . . . Rest assured that I will never change and that whoever attacks you, you will have me as your second." In a society where dueling was still the highest form of self-protection and acting as "second" to one's dueling friend the greatest mark of devotion, there was no stronger way for Louis the Just, who expressed his feelings so awkwardly, to describe his relationship with Cardinal Richelieu.

Did Louis XIII really mean what he said? Of course he did. Had he really done away with backbiting? No, there were always times when his darker side surfaced. So Richelieu was wise in following the practice common to early-seventeenth-century royal favorites and ministers, from Luynes and Lerma to Buckingham and Olivares. A series of pro-Richelieu fellow ministers, royal confessors, king's favorites, and other officials marched in review before the king from 1624 until the cardinal's death in 1642, all with Louis's full knowledge —first on occasion, and then more regularly, until by 1635 the king was surrounded by his own chief servitor's own servitors and surrogates.

The system had its drawbacks, notably in the case of royal favorites. Richelieu knew he could never fill all of his master's emotional needs. Hence it was in his own interest to cultivate Louis's attachment to an innocuous young courtier whom the king liked. That courtier, however, once master of the king's heart, might try to poison his mind against the cardinal during a dark mood, just as Richelieu had done against La Vieuville. Richelieu would then have to wage a campaign against this former friend. It was not easy; as in other matters, he won his point only by playing on the king's political conscience. Even then, Louis had to see with his own eyes that his loved one was violating the vow he had made after Luynes's death never to let a favorite interfere with statecraft.

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just

[histoireettralala]

Barbin, Mangot, Luçon

Condé's incarceration intensified the power struggle between two factions equally marred by political self-seeking. The rebels' new rallying cry of avenging their leader's arrest could not overcome their moral bankruptcy as a party aimed at transferring to themselves the power and patronage enjoyed by the queen mother's Italian favorites. On the royal side, the arrest was part of a new state policy of firmly resisting rebel demands. That policy shift stemmed from the appointment during the last months of 1616 of a vigorous ministerial triumvirate: Claude Barbin, Claude Mangot, and Armand-Jean du Plessis, bishop of Luçon. The triumvirs' effectiveness was hampered, however, by popular antipathy toward the couple who had put them in power, Concini and his wife, Galigaï.

Of the three "creatures" of the Ancres, Barbin had the most influence, and eventually suffered most severely from the king's wrath after the royal coup d'état of 1617. A shrewd manipulator of money and people, this private financier had advanced his career by leasing the collection of state fees to the profit of his friend, Leonora Galigaï, then became Marie's personal financial director and finally royal superintendent of finance. Barbin took the lead among the new ministers in boldly urging Marie to oppose princely disorder.

Mangot's background was somewhat less controversial. He had parlayed a brilliant law career and legal assistance to Concino Concini into acquisition of the top post in the Parlement of Bordeaux, then briefly served as a secretary of state, and finally as keeper of the seals, thereby assuming the judicial functions —but not the office itself— of chancellor, which post was always for life.

The minister who signed his name Lusson at this time was the last of the three to enter the council, and owed a great deal of his influence with the queen mother and her Italian favorites to the patronage of Barbin. Armand-Jean du Plessis, sieur de Richelieu, was the ambitious scion on his father's side of the petty noble Richelieu-du Plessis family, which had been prone to dueling and overspending, and on his mother's side of the hardworking La Porte - Meilleraye family of robe lineage. He had already come far as bishop of Lucon, orator of the clergy at the Estates General, almoner of young Queen Anne, and personal secretary to the queen mother. In November 1616, he became secretary of state for foreign affairs.

Sympathetic biographers have read more into the future cardinal-minister Richelieu's brief conciliar career of 1616-17 than the hard evidence proves. All we can say with certainty is that he showed himself to be bright and energetic in internal and external affairs. His surviving letters to Ancre were embarrassingly fawning, even for an era that assumed the way to become a favorite at court and stay there included a large dose of flattery and obsequiousness. Luçon also revealed his driving ambition and authoritarian bent to such an extent that, at his fall in 1617, the keenly observant young Louis XIII expressed relief to be rid of his tyranny.

The triumvirate was able to hold the military edge for the royal side against Condé's followers in the desultory fighting of the last months of 1616 and the beginning of 1617, but without finding a moral cause that would definitively tip the balance in this latest miniwar. To the contrary, the ever-escalating level of the Ancre couple's conspicuous privilege and power undermined everything Barbin was attempting to accomplish, and served also to make the queen mother more vulnerable as the Ancres' patroness.

A. Lloyd Moote- Louis XIII the Just

[histoireettralala]

Passive resistance

Condé feared that the king would become the tool of a nonentity or coquette, but it did not enter his head that the monarch could use the crutch of a friendship to realize his own political goals. Marie was even less astute, reportedly devising the strategty of surrounding him with persons of "mediocre capacity and little spirit." Among these was the man who would help Louis overthrow his mother and her favorite.

His name was Charles d'Albert, sieur de Luynes. Stories circulated that Luynes and his two younger brothers shared the same best suit, and that a hare could quickly jump across their family lands. Yet they were of the same lesser nobility that had predominated at the Estates General. Henri IV's friendship for Luynes' father, a soldier of fortune, caused him to place the younger Luynes among the dauphin Louis's noble comrades. The gentilhomme began to look after the heir's birds of prey; and the young boy's fondness for the gentle, handsome, and supportive middle-aged man grew.

By the end of 1614 Louis's attachment was so strong that it bothered Queen Mother Marie, her Italian favorite Concini, and the king's former governor, Souvré. Yet Luynes remained in Louis's favor and his brothers also gained easy access to the king. How did the king prevent a sequel to his mother's earlier banishment of Alexandre de Vendôme? We need follow only one example. In October 1614, Souvré made the Albert brothers stay away from the royal bedchamber, even during the ceremonial lever and coucher, hoping to supplant the gentleman-favorite with his own son, Courtenvaux. Someone told the king that his former governor was responsible, and Louis countered by treating Souvré with silence and dark looks, until the mortified man got the queen mother to negotiate an accommodation.

In employing passive resistance here, Louis had discovered the only way he could assert himself, considering the queen mother's imperiousness and his own timidity. The son also held his ground in refusing to tell his mother who had told him of Souvré's maneuver against Luynes, until she promised not to punish that individual. Equally revealing was the fact that Louis did not bear a grudge against Souvré or Courtenvaux, both of whom he actually liked. He paid for all this agitation with a soaring pulse and symptoms of illness. This powerful combination of indirect strategy, fierce loyalty, forgiveness, and sacrifice of personal health, then, separates the real adolescent Louis XIII from both the weakling and the vindictive Louis of historical fiction and scholarship.

If the court was baffled by the dynamics of Louis's friendships, it was equally unaware that his interests always had a serious element, even when they appeared frivolous. When he sketched with pen and ink, it was of horses pulling cannon, although incongruously placed in a child's setting of trees, churches, and village brides. Louis dutifully took part in court masques and ballets; however, his dislike of elaborate protocol and showing off caused him to refuse outright to lead his sister Elisabeth in a dance before the Spanish ambassador. The Spaniards were disconcerted by this affront so close to the marriages of Louis and Elisabeth to the children of King Philip III of Spain, Anne of Austria and the future Philip IV. The French court poet, Malherbe, could only comment: "If age and love don't change his ways, he will be inquisitive only of things that are solide."

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just